I looked at Clara. She had said that Julie’s walls were painted green. I started to shake my head. “Her uncle took one look at it when I was done and just said no way. Said it was all wrong for her. He painted that green right over himself. Tracked it on the white carpet we just had put in. Julie got home from camp and she was never the wiser, said she adored the green. Of course, I should have guessed. And she never wanted to replace that coverlet I made her a million years ago. I asked her so many times if she wanted a new one, that old plaid one was what I put together for her when she first got to the house, as a little thing. Sometimes … oh, sometimes I wonder if I smothered her. If she felt overwhelmed here.”

“She seemed happy to me, Mrs. Zale.”

“To me, too, dear.”

“Well, I should let you go, I think. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I just wanted … wanted to talk about her.”

“Call anytime, sweetheart. Okay? And you keep praying. We’ll get our girl back. I know we will.”

I knew if I said another word, I’d cry, so I simply ended the call. Clara gripped my arm. I had crumpled the poster in my hand.

“You’re right, Clara. That was terrible. I— I think I need to sit down.” I was so overwhelmed that for a few seconds I didn’t register Clara’s silence.

“Did you hear me, Clara? I said you were right. At first she said pink walls, but the uncle painted them green before Julie came back from camp, or something. He knew she wouldn’t like the pink. White carpet. She sewed the plaid blanket herself.”

She put her head in her hands. I looked up and started: there was a man leaning against the opposite wall, his baseball cap pulled low, a pair of sunglasses masking his eyes, a windbreaker with the Harrah’s logo emblazoned across the chest. The poker players always skulked around like that, like B-list celebrities in exile. He was already walking away. How much had he heard? It wasn’t so much that I thought he would do something about it: call the Zales, and what, report us? But it was deeply shameful, the idea that we’d been overheard.

“Clara, that guy … I think he heard us.”

She mumbled something, her fingers still over her eyes and mouth. It sounded like I don’t care. One of the Band-Aids had come unraveled. It had covered a perfect circle of a wound, one that wept with infection. The skin around it was bright red. A cigarette burn.

“Clara, let me see that.” I reached for her wrist, but she was quicker, pulled it away and hid her hand behind her back.